Bob from Brand X had written NO ETF (Early Termination Fee) near the signature line at a local car detail shop. But right above the signature line in the contract was the verbiage, “NO ALTERATIONS OR STRIKE-OUTS TO THE PROGRAM WILL BE ACCEPTED AND, IF MADE, ANY SUCH ALTERATIONS OR STRIKE-OUTS SHALL NOT APPLY.” And higher up on the page was a paragraph, “The Agreement

This is a typical opener for Bob. But is your machine really out of date or does Bob just want to sell you a new machine or sign you up for an expensive new lease? Give us a call and double check Bob’s story before you get suckered into a lease on a new machine when your current machine is working just fine for you

Fred has a car mechanic shop. When I stopped by to talk to him about his card processing, he brought out his bank statement and showed me that some charges were on his statement relating to his credit card processing. Poor Fred had switched processors a while back and got new equipment, but had never cancelled or paid off his old lease. Now he was

Today, one of our merchants called because they had received a phone call from someone saying they were with merchant services regarding their PCI compliance. The caller went on to explain that their machine was not PCI compliant and that he could send out a new one at no cost right away. Our merchant was wise and pushed to find out from the caller exactly

I recently spoke with a new business wanting to set up credit card processing. He wanted to compare us to another company that gave him a quote with a flat rate of 1.89% and $.19. The rate was, obvious to me but not obvious to a rookie, only for qualified transactions. I knew it was too low for rewards cards, corporate cards, and keyed-in cards.

I recently spoke with a non-profit who closed one of their entities. They went to close their merchant services account at their bank, and lo and behold, they found out that the contract they had signed stated they would be responsible for paying the average surcharge fees the bank had been collecting from their merchant services until the end of the contract, even though they

Recently there was an article from our industry magazine about a processor selling interchange pricing. But it turned out they were padding the interchange and not disclosing this to their merchants. So the merchant was paying interchange plus a surcharge, all under a category called interchange.

Recently a customer relayed a story about her previous processor, Bob. He prospected her on the phone and told her he represented Wells Fargo, which just happened to be her bank. He told her she would save money on her checking account fees if she used Wells Fargo credit card processing services. So she signed up. When she got the first statement, she discovered that

Some people shop the internet for credit card rates. This is scary to me! The rate structures of card processing is like balancing a scale, with not just two buckets to compare, but about a hundred. There are so many different rates for different types of cards and it is just plain difficult, to say the least, to compare tiered pricing, to cost plus pricing,

Bob is still out there selling high leases on equipment. I ran across a merchant last week who was told she needed a new terminal for $100 lease payments, but not to worry because her savings were way higher than $100/month. Wowza! Bob earned a great up-front commission on that one. And there was no documentation on the monthly savings, just a verbal comment that